$B   167    33S 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 


ELEANOR   ATKINSON 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

CERF  LIBRARY 

PRESENTED  BY 

REBECCA  CERF  '02 

IN  THE  NAMES  OF 

CHARLOTTE  CERF  '95 

MARCEL  E.  CERF  '97 

BARRY  CERF  '02 


LINCOLN'S 
LOVE  STORY 


Drawing  by  Jay  Hambidge. 

"  '/  cannot  bear  to  1hi.nk  of  her  out  there  alone  in  the  storm.'  ' 


LINCOLN'S     LOVE    STORY 


BY 
ELEANOR   ATKINSON 

Author  of  "The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln"  and  "  Mamzelle  Fifine" 

ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
MCMIX 


ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED,   INCLUDING   THAT   OF  TRANSLATION 
INTO   FOREIGN   LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING   THE   SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT,    1908,   BY   THE   CURTIS   PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,   1909,   BY   DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE   &  COMPANY 

PUBLISHED,   JANUARY,   1909 


NOTE 

THIS      STORY      FIRST      APPEARED      IN     THE    "LADIES ' 

HOME    JOURNAL"    UNDER    THE    TITLE    "THE  LOVE 
STORY  OF  ANN  RUTLEOGE." 


M566955 
I 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

'I  cannot  bear  to  think  of  her  out 
there  alone  in  the  storm' 3 '   Frontispiece 


FACING   PAGE 


Above  the  dam  at  New  Salem          .         6 

The  grammar  which   Lincoln  stu 
died  as  a  young  man  .         .         .16 

New  Salem,  111.,  where  Lincoln  was 
postmaster  .....       20 

Squire  Bowling  Green's  cabin,  near 
New  Salem,  111.,  as  it  is  to-day    .       32 

The  top  of  the  hill,  New  Salem  36 

Gutzon   Borglum's    conception    of 
Lincoln        .....       46 

The  grave  of  Ann  Rutledge,  Oak 
land  Cemetery,  Petersburg,  111.    .       56 


LINCOLN'S 
LOVE  STORY 


Lincoln's  Love  Story 

TN  THE  sweet  spring  weather  of  1835, 
Abraham  Lincoln  made  a  memorable 
journey.  It  was  the  beginning  of  his 
summer  of  love  on  the  winding  banks  of 
the  Sangamon.  Only  one  historian  has 
noted  it  as  a  happy  interlude  in  a  youth  of 
struggle  and  unsatisfied  longings,  but 
the  tender  memory  of  Ann  Rutledge,  the 
girl  who  awaited  him  at  the  end  of  it, 
must  have  remained  with  him  to  the  day 
of  his  martyrdom. 

He     was    returning    from    Vandalia, 
Illinois,   then  the   capital,   and   his   first 
term  in  the  state  legislature,  to  the  back 
woods  village  of  New  Salem  that  had  been 
3 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
his  home  for  four  years.  The  last  twenty 
miles  of  the  journey,  from  the  town  of 
Springfield,  he  made  on  a  hired  horse. 
The  landscape  through  which  he  rode 
that  April  morning  still  holds  its  enchant 
ment;  the  swift,  bright  river  still  winds 
in  and  out  among  the  wooded  hills,  for 
the  best  farming  lands  lie  back  of  the 
gravelly  bluffs,  on  the  black  loam  prairie. 
But  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago 
central  Illinois  was  an  almost  primeval 
world.  Settlements  were  few  and  far 
apart.  No  locomotive  awoke  the  echoes 
among  the  verdant  ridges,  no  smoke 
darkened  the  silver  ribbon  of  the  river, 
no  coal-mine  gashed  the  green  hillside. 
Here  and  there  a  wreath  of  blue  marked 
the  hearth-fire  of  a  forest  home,  or  beyond 
a  gap  in  the  bluff  a  log-cabin  stood  amid 
the  warm  brown  furrows  of  a  clearing; 
but  for  the  most  part  the  Sangamon 
4 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
River  road  was  broken  through  a  sylvan 
wilderness. 

There  were  walnut  groves  then,  as  there 
are  still  oaks  and  maples.  Among  the 
darker  boles  the  trunks  of  sycamores 
gleamed.  In  the  bottoms  the  satin  foli 
age  of  the  cottonwood  shimmered  in  the 
sun,  and  willows  silvered  in  the  breeze. 
Honey-locusts,  hawthorn  and  wild  crab- 
apple  trees  were  in  bloom,  dogwood  made 
pallid  patches  in  the  glades  and  red-bud 
blushed.  Wild  flowers  of  low  growth 
carpeted  every  grassy  slope.  The  earth 
exhaled  all  those  mysterious  fragrances 
with  which  the  year  renews  its  youth. 
In  April  the  mating  season  would  be 
over  and  the  birds  silent,  a  brood 
ing  stillness  possess  an  efflorescent 
Eden. 

It  was  a  long  enough  ride  for  a  young 
man  to  indulge  in  memories  and  dreams. 
5 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
A  tall,  ungainly  youth  of  twenty-six  was 
this  rising  backwoods  politician.  He 
wore  a  suit  of  blue  jeans,  the  trousers 
stuffed  in  the  tops  of  cowhide  boots;  a 
hat  of  rabbit-fur  felt,  with  so  long  a  nap 
that  it  looked  not  unlike  the  original  pelt, 
was  pushed  back  from  his  heavy  black 
hair.  But  below  primitive  hat  and  un 
ruly  hair  was  a  broad,  high  forehead,  lu 
minous  gray  eyes  of  keen  intelligence, 
softened  by  sympathy  and  lit  with  hu 
mour,  features  of  rugged  strength,  and  a 
wide  mouth,  full  and  candid  and  sweet. 
His  wardrobe  was  in  his  saddle-bags ;  his 
library  of  law  books,  most  of  them  bor 
rowed,  in  a  portmanteau  on  his  saddle 
bow;  a  hundred  dollars  or  so  of  his  pay 
as  a  legislator  in  his  belt,  and  many  times 
that  amount  pledged  to  debtors.  His 
present  living  was  precarious;  his  only 
capital  reputation,  courage,  self-confi- 
6 


I 


« 

a* 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
dence     and  a  winning    personality;    his 
fortune  still  under  his  shabby  hat. 

But  this  morning  he  was  not  to  be 
dismayed.  Difficulties  dissolved,  under 
this  fire  of  spring  in  his  heart,  as  the  snow 
had  melted  in  the  sugar  groves.  The 
sordid  years  fell  away  from  him;  debts 
no  longer  burdened  his  spirit.  That 
sombre  outlook  upon  life,  his  heritage 
from  a  wistful,  ill-fated  mother,  was 
dissipated  in  the  sun  of  love. 

It  was  on  such  an  April  morning  as 
this,  four  years  before,  that  he  had  first 
seen  Ann  Rut  ledge.  She  was  in  the 
crowd  that  had  come  down  to  the  mill  to 
cheer  him  when  he  got  the  flat-boat  he 
was  taking  to  New  Orleans  safely  over 
New  Salem  dam.  Ann  was  eighteen  then, 
and  she  stood  out  from  the  villagers 
gathered  on  the  bank  by  reason  of  a  cer 
tain  fineness  of  beauty  and  bearing. 
7 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
Her  crown  of  hair  was  so  pale  a  gold  as 
to  be  almost  flaxen.  Besides  always  be 
ing  noted  as  kind  and  happy,  her  eyes 
are  described  as  a  dark,  violet-blue, 
with  brown  brows  and  lashes.  Her 
colouring  was  now  rose,  now  pearl, 
changing  like  the  anemones  that  blow 
along  the  banks  of  the  Sangamon.* 

Hero  of  the  day,  the  raw  youth  was 
taken  up  the  bluff  and  over  the  ridge  into 
the  busy  town  of  twenty  log-houses  and 
shops.  He  was  feasted  in  the  eight-room 
tavern  of  hewn  logs  owned  by  her  father, 
James  Rutledge,  and  for  an  hour  enter 
tained  a  crowd  of  farmers,  emigrants,  and 
shopkeepers  writh  droll  stories  —  stories 
that,  unknown  to  him,  would  be  repeated 
before  nightfall  over  a  radius  of  twenty 
miles.  He  was  beginning  to  discover 
that  men  liked  to  hear  him  talk,  and  to 


*  See  note  page  60 

8 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
wonder  if  this  facility  for  making  friends 
could  be  turned  to  practical  use.  But 
as  a  young  man  whose  fancy  had  fed  on  a 
few  books  and  many  dreams,  it  may  have 
meant  more  that  this  beautiful  girl  waited 
on  the  table,  laughed  at  his  jokes  — too 
kind  of  heart,  too  gentle  of  breed,  to 
laugh  at  his  awkwardness  —  and  praised 
his  wit  and  cleverness  and  strength. 

When  he  pushed  his  boat  off,  Ann 
waved  her  kerchief  from  the  bank.  He 
looked  back  at  her  outlined  against  the 
green  bluff,  to  fix  it  in  a  memory  none  too 
well-furnished  with  such  gracious  pictures. 
He  might  never  see  her  again.  Poor, 
obscure,  indifferently  self-educated,  un 
aware  of  his  own  powers,  he  saw  before 
him,  at  that  time,  only  the  vagabond  life  of 
a  river  boatman,  or  the  narrow  opportuni 
ties  of  a  farm  labourer.  But  he  displayed 
such  qualities  on  that  voyage  as  to  win 
9 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
his  employer.    In  July  he  returned  to  New 
Salem  as  a  clerk  in  Denton  Offutt's  store. 

It  is  not  probable  that  Lincoln  was 
conscious  of  a  pang  when  he  heard  that 
Ann  Rutledge  was  engaged  to  marry 
John  McNeill,  proprietor  of  the  best  store 
in  the  town  and  of  rich  farming  lands. 
Daughter  of  the  mill  and  tavern  owner, 
descended  from  a  family  of  South  Caro 
lina  planters  that  boasted  a  Signer  of  the 
Declaration,  a  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  under  President  Wash 
ington,  and  a  leader  in  an  early  Congress, 
she  was  far  above  the  penniless,  undis 
tinguished  store-clerk.  In  the  new  West 
ability  and  worth  could  push  itself  to 
the  front  as  nowhere  else  in  the  world,  but 
pioneer  society  was  not  so  democratic 
but  that  birth  and  wealth  had  their  claims 
to  consideration. 

Most  girls,  at  that  time,  were  married 
10 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
at  eighteen,  but  Ann  was  still  studying 
under  the  Scotch  schoolmaster,  Mentor 
Graham.  Lincoln  met  her  often  at  the 
"spell-downs"  with  which  the  school 
closed  the  Friday  afternoon  sessions. 
When  he  returned  from  an  inglorious 
Indian  campaign  the  next  year,  he  went 
to  the  Rutledge  tavern  to  board.  He  had 
risen  rapidly  in  public  esteem,  had 
captained  a  local  company  in  the  war, 
made  a  vigorous  campaign  for  the  legis 
lature,  and  betrayed  a  wide  and  curious 
knowledge  of  books  and  public  questions. 
A  distinguished  career  was  already  pre 
dicted  for  him. 

He  and  Ann  were  fast  friends  now,  and 
for  the  next  year  and  a  half  he  saw  her 
daily  in  her  most  endearing  aspects  of 
elder  sister  and  daughter.  It  was  a  big, 
old-fashioned  family  of  nine  children, 
and  Ann  did  the  sewing  and  much  of  the 
11 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
spinning  and  weaving.  At  meal  times 
she  waited  on  the  long  tables,  bringing 
platters  of  river  fish,  game,  and  pork  from 
the  kitchen  fire-place,  corn  and  wheat 
bread  and  hominy,  milk  and  butter,  honey 
and  maple  sugar,  pots  of  coffee,  and 
preserves  made  from  wild  berries  and 
honey.  Amid  the  crowds  of  rough  men 
and  the  occasional  fine  gentleman,  who 
could  not  but  note  her  beauty  and  sweet 
ness,  Ann  held  an  air  of  being  more  pro 
tected  and  sheltered  in  her  father's  house 
than  was  of  ten  possible  in  a  frontier  tavern. 
The  meal  over,  she  vanished  into  the 
family  room.  One  chimney  corner  was 
hers  for  her  low  chair  of  hickory  splints, 
her  spinning  wheel,  and  her  sewing  table, 
with  its  little  drawer  for  thread  and 
scissors.  About  her  work  in  the  morning 
she  wore  a  scant-skirted  tight-fitting 
gown  of  blue  or  brown  linsey.  But  for 
12 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
winter  evenings  the  natural  cream-white 
of  flax  and  wool  was  left  undyed,  or  it  was 
coloured  with  saffron,  a  dull  orange  that 
glorified  her  blond  loveliness.  She  had 
wide,  cape-like  collars  of  home-made  lace, 
pinned  with  a  cameo  or  painted  brooch, 
and  a  high  comb  of  tortoise-shell  behind 
the  shining  coil  of  her  hair,  that  made  her 
look  like  the  picture  of  a  court  lady 
stepped  out  of  its  frame.  Not  an  hour  of 
privation  or  sorrow  had  touched  her  since 
the  day  she  was  born.  On  the  women 
whom  Lincoln  had  known  and  loved  - 
his  mother,  his  stepmother,  and  his  sister 
-  pioneer  life  had  laid  those  piti 
less  burdens  that  filled  so  many  early,  for 
lorn  graves.  Ann's  fostered  youth  and 
unclouded  eyes  must  have  seemed  to  him 
a  blessed  miracle;  filled  him  with  deter 
mination  so  to  cherish  his  own  when  love 
should  crown  his  manhood. 
13 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
The  regular  boarders  at  the  tavern  were 
a  part  of  that  patriarchal  family  —  Ann's 
lover  McNeill,  Lincoln,  and  others. 
The  mother  was  at  her  wheel,  the  little 
girls  had  their  knitting  or  patchwork, 
the  boys  their  lessons.  The  young  men 
played  checkers  or  talked  politics.  James 
Rutledge  smoked  his  pipe,  read  the  latest 
weekly  paper  from  St.  Louis  or  Kas- 
kaskia,  and  kept  a  fond  eye  on  Ann. 

The  beautiful  girl  sat  there  in  the  fire 
light,  knitting  lace  or  sewing,  her  skilful 
fingers  never  idle;  but  smiling,  listening 
to  the  talk,  making  a  bright  comment 
now  and  then,  wearing  somehow,  in  her 
busiest  hour,  an  air  of  leisure,  with  all  the 
time  in  the  world  for  others,  as  a  lady 
should.  In  the  country  parlance  Ann  was 
always  spoken  of  as  "good  company." 
Sweet-natured  and  helpful,  the  boys  could 
always  go  to  her  with  their  lessons,  or  the 
14 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
little  sisters  with  a  dropped  stitch  or 
tangled  thread.  With  the  latest  baby, 
she  was  a  virginal  madonna.  Lincoln 
attended  the  fire,  held  Mrs.  Rutledge's 
yarn,  rocked  the  cradle,  and  told  his 
inimitable  stories.  When  he  had 
mastered  Kirkham's  Grammar  he  began 
to  teach  Ann  the  mysteries  of  parsing  and 
analysis. 

After  the  school  debate  one  night  a 
year  before,  Mentor  Graham,  one  of  those 
scholarly  pedagogues  who  leavened  the 
West  with  learning,  had  thrilled  him  with 
ambition  by  telling  him  he  had  a  gift  for 
public  speaking,  but  that  he  needed 
to  correct  many  inaccuracies  and  crudities 
of  speech.  Text  books  were  scarce,  but 
he  knew  of  a  grammar  owned  by  a  farmer 
who  lived  seven  miles  in  the  country. 
Lincoln  got  up  at  daylight,  filled  his 
pockets  with  corn  dodgers,  and  went  for 
15 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
that  grammar.  He  must  have  bought  it, 
paying  for  it  in  work,  for  he  afterward 
gave  it  to  Ann  —  his  single  gift  to  her, 
or  at  least  the  only  one  that  is  preserved. 
Her  brother  Robert's  descendants  have 
to-day  this  little  old  text-book,  inscribed 
on  the  title-page  in  Lincoln's  handwriting : 

Ann    M.    Rutledge    is    now    learning 
grammar. 

How  eloquent  that  battered,  faded, 
yellow-leafed  little  old  grammar  is  of  the 
ambitions  and  attainments  that  set  these 
two  apart  from  the  unrecorded  lives  in 
that  backwoods  community!  Ann  was 
betrothed,  and  her  content  and  trust  in 
her  lover  were  something  beautiful  to  see, 
but  McNeill's  figure  is  vague.  There  is 
no  description  of  him,  few  facts  about 
him  are  remembered,  except  that  he  had 
prospered  and  won  Ann  Rutledge's  love. 
In  the  stories  of  the  region,  that  have  now 
16 


The  grammar  which  Lincoln  studied  as  a  young  man. 

It  is  said  that  Lincoln  learned  this  grammar  by  heart,  and  it  is  the 

only  gift  which  he  is  known  to  have  given  to  Ann  Rutledge. 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
taken  on  the  legendary  haze  of  cherished 
romance,  Lincoln  is  the  hero,  long  before 
he  appears  in  the  character  of  chivalrous 
suitor. 

Oh,  those  long,  intimate  evenings! 
Twenty  people  were  in  the  big,  fire-lit 
family  room,  perhaps,  storm  outside  and 
flames  roaring  merrily  in  the  chimney. 
But  they  two,  with  a  special  candle  on 
Ann's  little  sewing-table,  were  outside 
the  circle  of  murmurous  talk  and  laughter, 
the  pale  gold  head  and  the  raven  one  close 
together  over  the  hard-and-fast  rules  of 
the  text  book!  Lincoln  loved  her  then, 
unconsciously,  must  have  loved  her  from 
the  first,  but  he  was  incapable  of  a  dis 
honourable  thought,  and  Ann's  heart  was 
all  McNeill's. 

After  Mr.  Rutledge  sold  the  mill  and 
tavern  in   1833  and  moved  to  a  farm, 
Lincoln  lived  much  of  the  time  at  Squire 
17 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
Bowling  Green's,  on  a  farm  a  half-mile 
north  of  the  town,  under  the  brow  of 
the  bluff.  The  jovial  squire  was  a 
justice  of  the  peace,  a  sort  of  local 
Solomon  whose  decisions  were  based  on 
common  sense  and  essential  justice,  rather 
than  on  the  law  or  evidence.  He  had 
a  copy  of  the  Statutes  of  Illinois  that 
Lincoln  was  going  through.  William 
G.  Greene  was  there,  too,  much  of  the 
time,  although  he  was  in  no  way  related 
to  the  Squire.  This  most  intimate 
friend  of  Lincoln's  among  the  young 
men  of  New  Salem  Was  preparing  to  go 
to  college.  Aunt  Nancy  Green  adored 
Lincoln,  and  said  he  paid  his  board  twice 
over  in  human  kindness  and  pure  fun. 
Here  he  made  his  home  most  of  the  time 
until  he  went  away  to  Springfield  to 
practise  law.  It  was  while  he  was  living 
at  Squire  Green's,  in  the  spring  of  1834, 
18 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
that  John  McNeill  suddenly  sold  his  store 
and  left  for  his  old  home,  indefinitely 
"back  East."  The  event  turned  all 
Lincoln's  current  of  thought  and  purposes 
into  new  and  deeper  channels. 

The  reason  McNeill  gave  was  that  he 
wanted  to  bring  his  old  father  and  mother 
out  West  to  care  for  them  on  his  farm. 
When  he  returned  he  and  Ann  were  to  be 
married.  It  was  a  long  journey,  not 
without  its  perils  —  first  across  to  Vin- 
cennes,  Indiana,  down  the  Wabash  and 
up  the  Ohio  to  Pittsburg,  then  over  the 
Alleghanies  into  New  York  State.  It 
would  be  weeks  between  letters,  a  year  at 
least  before  he  could  return.  Many 
said  openly  that  a  man  who  was  worth 
twelve  thousand  dollars,  like  John 
McNeill,  could  have  his  parents  brought 
to  him.  What  Ann  thought  no  one  ever 
knew.  If  she  was  hurt,  she  hid  it  in  her 
19 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
loyal  heart,  not  cherishing  it  against  him, 
and  James  Rutledge  did  not  object.  Of 
a  race  in  which  honour  and  chivalry  were 
traditions,  it  could  not  have  occurred  to 
him  that  any  man  lived  so  base  as  to  break 
faith  with  his  beloved  daughter. 

So  Ann  packed  John  McNeill's  saddle 
bags,  putting  in  every  little  comfort  her 
loving  heart  could  think  of  or  her  indus 
trious  fingers  contrive,  stepped  up  on  the 
toe  of  her  lover's  riding-boot  to  kiss  him 
good-bye,  then  bade  him  God-speed  and 
watched  him  ride  away,  not  knowing 
that  he  was  riding  out  of  her  life. 

Lincoln  was  the  New  Salem  post 
master.  In  his  journeys  about  the 
country  —  surveying,  working  in  the  har 
vest  field,  electioneering  —  he  carried 
the  mail  of  such  farms  as  he  passed  in  his 
hat  or  his  saddle-bags.  The  pioneer  post 
master  was  the  confidant  of  those  he 
20 


i  -s 

,  «>* 

'O  §       Qi 

C          <tt       V. 


•ft 


ii    s 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
served,  in  the  absence  of  ministers  and 
doctors.  People  read  to  him  the  letters 
they  received,  complained  of  neglect, 
demanded  of  him  sympathy  in  their 
private  joys  and  sorrows.  And  so  it  was 
he  came  close  to  the  grief  of  Ann  Rutledge. 
Weeks  went  by,  and  there  was  no  letter 
from  the  absent  McNeill.  Ann  wrote 
often  herself,  tying  the  missives  in  wrap 
ping  paper  with  stout  string,  sealing  them 
securely,  and  giving  them  to  Lincoln  to 
mail.  Cheerful  at  first,  her  face  grew 
wistful,  her  colour  fled,  her  singing  voice 
fell  silent.  Too  loyal  to  suspect,  too 
proud  to  complain,  what  fears  possessed 
the  lonely  watches  of  the  night,  what 
hope  awoke  with  each  dawn,  those  who 
loved  her  best  could  only  dimly  guess. 
Her  head  held  high  in  the  pride  of  a 
faith  unshaken,  she  asked  for  her  letter 
only  with  a  look,  but  such  a  look  as  one 
21 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
could  scarce  endure  and  the  heart  must 
ache  to  deny.  Afterward  she  said  she 
thought  of  her  lover  as  dead.  Steamboats 
often  blew  up  in  those  days;  there  were 
swamps  along  the  Wabash  and  the  Ohio 
where  men  died  of  malarial  fever;  there 
were  treacherous  places  in  the  mountains 
where  a  stumbling  horse  could  end,  in 
unrecorded  tragedy,  the  sweetest  human 
drama.  In  her  heart  she  set  up  a  shrine 
to  a  consecrated  memory.  For  the  one 
blow  fate  held  for  her  she  was  unprepared. 
In  early  summer  there  was  a  letter. 
Lincoln  must  have  leaped  on  the  nearest 
saddled  horse  and  galloped  out  to  the  farm 
to  give  it  to  her.  He  slipped  it  into  her 
hand  unseen,  saw  the  happy  colour  flood 
her  face,  and  watched  her  speed  away  to 
the  riverbank  to  read  it.  It  was  evening 
when  she  crept  home  again,  in  the 
radiance  of  the  harvest  moon,  across  the 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
stubble    of     the    wheat,    like    a    dazed 
ghost. 

It  was  not  a  letter  that  Ann  could  speak 
of  to  her  father  and  mother  with  con 
fidence  and  pride.  McNeill  had  been  ill 
on  the  journey  —  not  so  ill,  however, 
that  he  could  not  have  written.  And 
his  name  was  not  McNeill,  but  McNamar. 
Family  misfortunes  had  caused  him  to 
change  his  name  out  West  so  dependent 
relatives  could  not  find  him,  thus  giving 
the  lie  to  his  excuse  for  going  back.  He 
said  nothing  about  returning,  showed  no 
remorse  for  his  neglect,  did  not  speak  of 
her  tender  letters  to  him.  Perhaps,  in  the 
old  home,  he  had  not  cared  to  claim 
them  under  the  name  by  which  she  knew 
him.  It  was  a  strange  letter,  heartless 
and  without  a  spark  of  honour.  But  Ann 
had  loved  the  man  for  four  years,  plight 
ing  her  troth  with  him  at  seventeen. 
23 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
Although  he  had  wounded  her  inrooted 
affections  and  faith,  apparently  deserted 
her  without  a  pang,  placed  her  in  an 
intolerable  position  before  a  censorious 
world,  she  could  not  put  him  out  of  her 
mind  and  heart.  She  wrote  to  him  again, 
with  no  reproaches,  and  she  kept  her  own 
counsel. 

Two  more  letters  came  at  long  intervals. 
Then  they  ceased  altogether.  In  every 
sparsely  settled  community  there  is  much 
curiosity  about  the  unusual  event,  and 
some  malice  toward  misfortune.  Here 
offensive  gossip  ran  about.  It  was 
reported  that  McNamar  was  a  fugitive 
from  justice  —  a  thief,  a  murderer,  that 
he  already  had  a  wife  in  the  East.  The 
talk  enraged  her  father,  and  enveloped 
sweet  Ann  Rutledge  in  an  atmosphere  of 
blight.  The  truth  —  that  he  had  tired  of 
her  —  was  surely  not  so  bad  as  these 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
rumours  of  criminal  acts.  With  that 
element  of  the  maternal  that  underlies  the 
love  of  women  for  men,  she  came  to  the 
defence  of  his  good  name.  She  showed 
her  father  the  letters,  laying  the  sacrifice 
of  her  rejected  self  on  the  altar  of  a  lost, 
unworthy  love. 

But  it  had  the  opposite  effect  she 
intended.  In  James  Rutledge's  Southern 
code  this  was  the  blackest  thing  a  man 
could  do.  A  thousand  miles  of  wilder 
ness  separated  him  from  the  scoundrel 
who  had  broken  the  heart  of  his  daughter ! 
Was  John  McNamar  to  go  unpunished  ? 
Not  an  old  man,  he  seemed  to  break  up 
physically  under  the  blow.  Public  sym 
pathy  was  with  him  and  with  the 
deserted  girl.  Her  father  was  her  lover 
now,  surrounding  her  with  every  attention 
and  tender  care.  It  was  remarked  in  a 
day  and  place  when  family  affection  was 
25 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
not  demonstrative.     Again,  in  the  coun 
try  parlance,  it  was  said:    "James  Rut- 
ledge  is  just  wrapped  up  in  Ann." 

A  new  element  was  added  to  this 
absorbing  drama  when  Lincoln  began  to 
pay  open  court  to  Ann,  publishing  it  far 
and  wide  that  he  would  be  proud  to  win 
what  McNamar  had  not  cared  to  keep. 
A  wave  of  enthusiastic  admiration  swept 
over  the  country-side.  Nothing  else  was 
talked  of  in  the  town  and  around  the 
mill.  His  chivalrous  love  may  well  have 
played  its  part  in  his  spectacular  campaign 
for  the  legislature,  and  his  triumphant 
election  in  August. 

Ann  gave  no  encouragement  to  his  suit. 
To  Lincoln,  who  was  reading  Jack 
Kelso's  precious  copy  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  at  the  time,  his  love  must  have 
seemed  another  Ophelia,  crushed  by 
unkindness,  bewildered  by  a  world  in 
26 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
which  men  could  break  faith.  As  she 
shrank  from  the  blunt  perception  of 
curious  neighbours  she  came  to  lean  more 
and  more  on  Lincoln's  devotion.  It  had 
in  it,  permeating  its  human  quality,  that 
divine  compassion  which,  enlarged,  was 
afterward  to  free  a  race.  He  wanted  to 
free  her  spirit  from  bonds  of  the  past.  In 
the  early  days  of  his  wooing  his  personal 
feeling  and  hopes  were  put  in  the 
background. 

He  persuaded  Ann  to  study  with  him 
again.  All  that  long  autumn,  while  the 
walnuts  turned  to  gold,  the  maples 
flamed  across  the  world,  and  the  oaks 
poured  their  cascades  of  red  wine  over  the 
bluffs,  they  were  together.  Often  the 
two  were  seen  under  a  giant  sycamore, 
on  a  hill  below  the  town  and  overlooking 
the  river,  Ann  puzzling  over  conjuga 
tions,  Lincoln  sprawled  at  her  feet  read- 
27 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
ing  Blackstone's  Commentaries.  It|was 
such  an  extraordinary  thing  in  £hat 
unlettered  region  that  it  was  remarked 
ever  after  by  those  who  saw  it.  It  was 
an  affair  of  public  interest,  and  now  of 
publicly  expressed  satisfaction  at  the 
happier  turn  of  events.  The  world  not 
only  loves  a  lover,  but  it  loves  wedding 
bells  at  the  end  of  the  story.  The  first 
frost  touched  the  forests  with  a  magic 
wand,  then  Indian  summer  lay  its 
bloomy  haze  over  the  landscape  like  the 
diaphanous  veil  that  parts  a  waiting  soul 
from  Paradise.  With  the  gales  and 
snows  of  December  Lincoln  rode  away  for 
his  winter  of  lawmaking  at  Vandalia. 

Now,  indeed,  letters  came  for  Ann 
across  the  white  silence  that  lay  in  the 
valley  of  the  Sangamon.  Dated  from 
the  state  capital  they  were,  written  with 
the  quill  pens  and  out  of  the  cork  ink- 
28 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
stands  the  commonwealth  provided. 
Not  one  of  these  letters  is  in  existence 
to-day.  They  could  not  have  been  love- 
letters  in  the  conventional  sense,  but  elo 
quent  of  that  large  comradeship  love 
holds  for  men  and  women  of  rare  hearts 
and  minds.  For  the  first  time  he  had 
come  into  contact  with  the  men  who  were 
shaping  the  destinies  of  his  state,  measur 
ing  his  capacities  with  theirs,  and  finding 
that  he  did  not  differ  from  them  much  in 
kind  or  degree.  His  ambition  took  defi 
nite  shape.  He  saw  a  future  of  distinction 
and  service  such  as  he  would  be  proud 
to  ask  Ann  to  share. 

What  pictures  of  men  and  the  times  he 
must  have  drawn  for  her!  In  those 
pioneer  days  only  a  few  of  the  public  men 
were  backwoods  lawyers  like  himself. 
Some,  indeed,  and  many  of  the  best, 
expressed  the  native  genius  and  crude 
29 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
force  that  were  transforming  the  wilder 
ness.  But  there  were  old-world  aristo 
crats,  to  whom  the  English  language  even 
was  exotic,  from  Kaskaskia  and  the 
French  mission  towns,  more  than  a 
century  old,  on  the  Mississippi.  And 
there  were  Southern  planters  of  wealth, 
whose  fiery  code  always  held  for  Lincoln 
an  element  of  the  absurd.  Eastern  men 
too,  were  there,  with  traditions  of  genera 
tions  of  learning  and  public  service,  and 
some  "Yankees"  with  an  over-developed 
shrewdness  that  the  others  agreed  in 
detesting.  Chicago  was  only  an  upstart 
village;  northern  Illinois  just  opened  up 
to  emigration  from  the  East;  southern 
Illinois  was  of  the  South,  in  population 
and  sentiment,  with  the  added  grace  of 
French  manners.  The  capital  was  a  tiny 
city,  but  it  had  high-bred  society  into 

which   Ann   would   fit   so   well.     There 
30 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
would  be  humorous  anecdotes  in  those 
letters,  too,  to  restore  the  gaiety  of  her 
heart,  for,  much  as  he  loved  men,  their 
foibles  and  failings  furnished  him  infinite 
amusement. 

The  lonely  girl  could  not  but  be  cheered 
by  these  letters  and  have  her  outlook  on 
life  enlarged  by  them,  so  that  her  own 
experience  dwindled  somewhat  in  the 
perspective.  She  wrote  to  him  —  girlish, 
grateful  letters  —  saying  nothing  of  Mc- 
Namar,  and  showing  how  pathetically 
she  leaned  on  him.  On  his  homeward 
ride  in  the  sweet  spring  weather  his  mind 
dwelt  on  her  with  a  tenderness  no  longer 
forbidden,  no  longer  hopeless  of  its 
reward. 

Squire  Green's  farm  lay  to  the  north 

of    New    Salem,    so   that,   on  this    day 

of  his  return,  he  must  have  avoided  the 

village,    its      clamorous     welcome,     its 

31 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
jesting  surmises.  In  fancy  he  could 
imagine  that  lovable  vagabond,  Jack 
Kelso,  fishing  from  the  pier  below  the 
dam,  catching  sight  of  him  out  of  the  tail 
of  a  mischievous  Irish  eye,  and  announc 
ing  his  arrival  with  a  tender  stanza  from 
"Annie  Laurie."  The  sympathy  of  town 
and  country-side  wTas  with  him  in  his 
wooing,  and  it  warmed  his  heart;  but 
to-day  was  sacred  to  love. 

He  turned  from  the  road  into  the  ravine 
toward  the  big  cabin  of  hewn  logs  that 
nestled  under  the  brow  of  the  bluff.  We 
know  that  a  grove  of  forest  trees  sur 
rounded  it  and  a  young  apple  orchard, 
in  blossom  in  April,  concealed  it  from  the 
highway  and  river.  If  it  was  after  the  noon 
hour  the  men  would  have  gone  back  to 
their  ploughing,  and  Aunt  Nancy  Green, 
in  a  gown  of  lilac  print,  be  sitting  with 
her  patchwork  in  the  orchard,  where  she 
32 


' 


la 


cq 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
could  smell  the  bloom,  keep  an  eye  on 
strolling,  downy  broods,  and  watch  the 
honey-bees  fill  her  hives.  The  Squire 
was  there,  too,  very  likely,  tilted  back  in 
his  wide  chair  of  hickory  splints,  asleep. 
He  was  a  well-to-do  man,  and  as  he 
weighed  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
he  took  life  easy,  and  was  never  far  away 
from  the  slender  shadow  cast  by  busy 
"mother." 

"Yes,  Bill  was  some'ers  'round,"  but 
lively  Aunt  Nancy  ventured  an  affection 
ate  joke,  saying  she  "  reckoned  Abe 
was  n't  pinin'  to  see  Bill  as  much  as  he 
was  someone  else."  She  was  willing  to 
get  his  dinner  in  the  middle  of  the  after 
noon,  but  he  had  to  pay  for  it  with  his  best 
new  stories.  A  visit  with  Aunt  Nancy, 
his  books  arranged  on  the  shelf  he  had 
built  above  his  table  in  the  chimney 
corner,  a  swim  in  a  warm  shallow  pool  in 
33 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
the   Sangamon,  then   up  the  ladder- like 
stair  to  the  loft  chamber  he  often  shared 
with  the  friend  of  his  youth,  to  dress  for 
Ann! 

Lincoln  is  described,  about  this  time, 
by  Harvey  Ross,  who  carried  the  mail  over 
the  star-route  of  central  Illinois,  as  hav 
ing  a  summer  suit  of  brown  nankeen, 
with  a  white  waistcoat  sprigged  with 
coloured  flowers.  The  wide,  soft  collar 
of  his  white  shirt  rolled  back  over  a  neck 
cloth  made  of  a  black  silk,  fringed  hand 
kerchief.  His  hat  was  of  brown  buckeye 
splints,  the  pioneer's  substitute  for  straw. 
It  was  in  this  fashion  lie  must  have 
appeared  as  he  walked  back  along  the 
river  and  across  the  fields  when  he  went 
to  urge  his  love  for  Ann  Rutledge. 

In  old  patch- work  quilts,  cherished  as 
the  work  of  our  great-grandmothers,  we 
may  see  to-day  bits  of  cotton  print  - 
34 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
white  with  coloured  pin-dots,  indigo  blue 
and  oil  red,  and  violet  and  pink  grounds 
powdered  with  tiny,  conventional  figures 
and  flowers  in  white.  They  remind  us 
of  old-fashioned  gardens  of  perennials 
where  lilacs,  damask  roses,  and  flowering 
almonds  bloomed.  A  young  girl  like 
Ann  would  have  one  such  pink  gown  to 
wear  on  warm  evenings;  and  a  quilted 
and  ruffled  sun-bonnet  of  sheer  muslin, 
not  to  wear  seriously,  but  to  hang  dis- 
tractingly  by  the  strings  around  her  white 
neck.  There  was  little  self-consciousness 
about  her,  and  no  coquetry  at  all.  Ann 
never  teased;  she  was  just  simple  and 
sincere  and  sweet.  But  it  would  be 
instinctive  with  her  to  pick  up  the  gram 
mar  as  an  excuse  for  the  stroll  along  the 
bluff  with  her  lover. 

Of  an  oak  or  a  maple,  no  matter  how 
dense  the  foliage,  one  has  a  distinct  image 
35 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
of  the  individual  leaf;  but  of  the  syca 
more  —  the  American  plane-tree  —  you 
may  see  thousands,  and  carry  away  only 
an  impression  of  a  silvery  column  and  an 
enormous  dome  of  green  gossamer  —  a 
diaphanous  mesh  of  vernal  lace,  whose 
pattern  dissolves  momently  in  the  sun, 
and  frays  and  ravels  in  the  wind.  When 
they  came  to  where  the  sycamore  was 
weaving  its  old  faery  weft  in  the  sunset 
light,  she  laid  the  bonnet  on  the  grass,  and 
listened  to  his  stories  and  comments  on 
the  new  men  and  things  he  had  seen,  until 
he  made  her  laugh,  almost  like  the  happy 
girl  of  old  tavern  days;  for  Lincoln 
was  a  wizard  who  could  break  the  spell  of 
bad  dreams  and  revive  dead  faiths.  A 
pause,  a  flutter  of  hearts  as  light  as  the 
leaf-shadows,  and  a  hasty  question  to 
cover  the  embarrassment.  There  was 
a  puzzling  point  in  her  grammar  les- 
36 


Photograpli  by  C.  U.  Williams,  Bloomington,  111. 

The  top  of  the  hill,  New  Salem,  Illinois. 

The  honey  locust  and  sycamore,  growing  together  from  a  slight 
depression  that  marks  the  site  of  Denton  Offutt's  store,  are 
known  as  the  "Lincoln  Trees." 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
son  —  how   can    adverbs    modify    other 
adverbs  ? 

Yes,  he  had  been  puzzled  by  that,  too, 
and  Mentor  Graham  had  helped  him  with 
an  illustration. 

I  love  you  very  dearly! 

Oh  yes,  she  understood  now!  A  burn 
ing  blush,  a  gasping  sigh  at  the  shock  of 
flooding  memory!  She  still  struggled  to 
forget  this  blighting  thing.  But  could 
she  ever  again  listen  to  such  words  with 
out  pain  or  shame  ?  She  had  the  courage 
of  a  proud  race.  If  her  lips  trembled,  she 
could  at  least*  lift  her  eyes  to  meet  that 
immemorial  look  of  brooding  tenderness, 
and  she  could  ask  timidly  if  he  would 
hear  her  recite  the  conjugation  of  the 
regular  verb  to  see  if  she  had  forgotten. 

Why  is  it  that  these  sober  old  grammars, 
full  of  hard-and-fast  rules  —  and  bewilder 
ing   exceptions  —  strewing    the    path    of 
37 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
learning  with  needless  thorns  and  obstruc 
tions  of  every  sort,  still  instinctively  chose 
the  one  verb  ardent  youth  conjugates 
with  no  teaching  at  all  ?  First  person, 
singular  number,  present  tense,  declara 
tive  mood  —  I  love,  transitive,  requiring 
an  object  to  complete  its  meaning,  as  life 
itself  requires  one  —  you. 

No  pause!  The  story  neither  begins 
there,  nor  ends.  How  tireless  that  con 
fession;  how  thrilling  that  mutual  self- 
analysis ;  what  glamour  over  every  aspect ! 
Past,  to  the  beginning  of  things,  future  to 
Eternity;  the  insistent,  pleading  inter 
rogative,  do  you  love;  the  absurd  potential, 
as  if  there  ever  was  any  may  or  might 
about  it;  the  inevitable,  continuing  state, 
loving;  the  infinitive  to  love  —  all  the 
meaning  and  purpose  of  life;  and  the 
crown  of  immortality  to  have  loved. 
Then  that  strange,  introspective  sub- 
38 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
junctive,  wild  with  vain  regret,  that  youth 
ponders  with  disbelief  that  Fate  could 
ever  so  defraud  —  that  a  few  lonely  souls 
have  had  to  con  in  the  sad  evening  of 
empty  lives: 

//  we  had  loved! 

O,  sweet  Ann  Rutledge,  could  you 
endure  to  look  back  across  such  arid 
years  and  think  of  this  lover  denied  ? 
No!  No  matter  what  life  yet  held  for 
them  of  joy  or  sorrow,  the  conjugation  is 
to  be  finished  with  the  first  person  plural, 
future-perfect,  declarative.  At  the  very 
worst  —  and  best  —  and  last,  robbing 
even  death  of  its  sting,  at  least: 

We  shall  have  loved. 

And  so  they  sat  there  long,  in  the  peace 
ful  evening  light,  looking  out  across  the 
river  with  the  singing  name,  that  purls 
and  ripples  over  its  gravelly  bars  and  sings 
the  story  of  their  love,  forever! 
39 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
No  one  who  saw  the  two  together  that 
summer  ever  forgot  it.  Pioneer  life  was 
too  often  a  sordid,  barren  thing,  where 
men  and  women  starved  on  bread  alone. 
So  Lincoln's  mother  had  dwindled  to  an 
early  grave,  lacking  nourishment  for  the 
spirit.  Courtship,  even,  was  elemental, 
robbed  of  its  hours  of  irresponsible  idle 
ness,  its  faery  realm  of  romance.  To 
see  anyone  rise  above  the  hard,  external 
facts  of  life  touched  the  imagination  of  the 
dullest.  In  his  public  aspect  a  large 
part  of  Lincoln's  power,  at  this  time,  was 
that  he  expressed  visibly  community 
aspirations  that  still  lay  dormant  and 
unrecognized.  Now,  he  and  Ann 
expressed  the  capacities  of  love  of  the 
disinherited.  To  the  wondering,  wistful 
eyes  that  regarded  them,  they  seemed  to 
have  escaped  to  a  fairer  environment  of 
their  own  making  —  of  books,  of  dreams, 
40 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
of    ambitions,  of    unimagined    compati 
bilities. 

He  borrowed  Jack  Kelso's  Burns  and 
Shakespeare  again,  to  read  with  Ann. 
Together  they  read  of  Mary,  loved  and 
lost;  of  Bonnie  Doon,  and  Flow  Gently, 
Sweet  Afton,  that  plea  to  old  mother- 
earth  for  tenderness  for  one  gone  beyond 
loving.  With  no  prescience  of  disaster 
they  read  that  old  love  tragedy  of  Verona. 

The  young  and  happy  can  read  these 
laments  without  sadness.  They  sound 
the  depths  of  passion  and  the  heights  of 
consecration.  They  sing  not  only  of 
dead  loves,  but  of  deathless  love,  and 
they  contract  the  heart  of  youth  with 
no  fear  of  bereavement.  Young  love  is 
always  secure,  thrice  ringed  around  with 
protecting  spells  and  enchantment;  death 
an  alien  thing  in  some  distant  star.  The 
banks  of  the  Sangamon  bloomed  fresh 
41 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
and  fair  that  golden  summer,  the  meadow- 
lark  sang  imreproached,  the  flowing  of  the 
river  accompanied  only  dreams  of  fuller 
life. 

They  knew  Italy  for  the  first  time, 
think  of  the  wonder  of  it !  —  as  something 
more  than  a  pink  peninsula  in  the 
geography  —  felt  the  soft  air  of  moon- lit 
nights  of  love  throb  with  the  strain  of 
the  nightingale.  There  are  no  nightin 
gales  in  America,  but  when  he  took  the 
flat-boat  down  to  New  Orleans  —  Did 
she  remember  waving  her  kerchief  from 
the  bank  ?  When  the  boat  was  tied  up 
in  a  quiet  Louisiana  bayou  one  night,  lie 
heard  the  dropping-song  of  the  mocking 
bird.  That  was  like  Juliet's  plea:  "Oh 
love,  remain!" 

What  memories!  What  discoveries! 
What  searching  self-revelations  by  which 
youth  leads  love  back  through  an  uncom- 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
panioned  past,  finding  there  old  experi 
ences,  trivial  and  forgotten  until  love 
touches  and  transforms  them.  Life  sud 
denly  becomes  spacious  and  richly 
furnished.  Lincoln's  old  ties  of  affection 
were  Ann's  now,  dear  and  familiar;  his 
old  griefs.  In  tender  retrospect  she 
shared  that  tragic  mystery  of  his  child 
hood,  his  mother's  early  death.  And, 
like  all  the  other  women  who  ever 
belonged  to  him,  she  divined  his 
greatness  —  had  a  glimpse  of  the  path  of 
glory  already  broadening  from  his  feet. 

She  set  her  own  little  feet  in  that  path, 
determined  that  he  should  not  outdistance 
her  if  she  could  keep  up  with  his  strides. 
They  could  not  be  married  until  he  was 
admitted  to  the  bar,  so  she  took  up  her 
old  plan  of  going  to  Jackson\  ille  Academy . 
Her  brother  David  was  going  to  college 
there,  and  then  was  to  study  law  with 
43 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
Lincoln.  What  endearing  ties  were 
beginning  to  bind  him  to  her  family! 
They  spent  long  afternoons  studying,  and 
Lincoln  made  rapid  progress,  for  his 
mind  was  clear  and  keen,  freed  from  its 
old  miasma  of  melancholy. 

But  they  seemed  curiously  to  have 
changed  characters.  Ann  had  been  the 
one  of  placid  temperament,  dwelling  on  a 
happy  level  of  faith  in  a  kind  world. 
Lincoln  had,  by  turns,  been  hilarious  and 
sunk  in  gloom.  Privations  and  loss  had 
darkened  his  youth;  promise  lured  his 
young  manhood  only  to  mock;  powers 
were  given  him  only  to  be  baffled.  But 
now  life  was  fair,  the  course  open,  the  goal 
in  sight,  happiness  secure!  For  Ann 
had  the  quiet  ways,  the  steadfast  love,  and 
the  sweet,  sweet  look,  in  which  a  man, 
jaded  and  goaded  by  the  world  of  struggle, 
could  find  rest.  Surely  fate  had  played 
44  * 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
all  her  malicious  tricks!  It  was  enough 
for  him.  that  summer,  to  lie  at  his  lady's 
feet,  his  elbows  in  the  grass,  his  shock 
head  in  his  hands,  absorbed  in  Chitty's 
"Pleadings." 

Ann  studied  fitfully,  often  looking  off 
absently  across  field  and  river,  starting 
from  deep  reverie  when  he  spoke  to  her. 
Her  mother  noticed  her  long,  grave 
silences,  but  thought  of  them  as  the 
pensive  musings  of  a  young  girl  in  love. 
This  impression  was  increased  by  her 
absorption  in  her  lover.  When  with 
him,  talking  with  him,  a  subtle  excitement 
burned  in  her  eye  and  pulsed  in  her 
cheek;  but  when  he  was  gone  the  inner 
fire  of  her  spirit  seemed  to  turn  to  ashes. 
She  clung  desperately,  visibly,  to  this  new 
love  —  so  infinitely  more  precious  and 
satisfying  than  the  old.  She  did  not 
doubt  its  reality,  but  happiness,  in  the 
45 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE     STORY 
nature  of  things,  was  to  her,  now,  evanes 
cent  and  escaping. 

People  remembered  afterward,  as  the 
days  lengthened,  how  fragile  Ann  looked, 
as  if  withered  by  hot,  sleepless  nights  - 
how  vivid  and  tremulous.  She  had  spells 
of  wild  gaiety,  her  laughter  bubbling  up 
like  water  from  a  spring,  and  she  grew 
lovelier,  day  by  day.  And  there  were 
times,  when  Lincoln  was  away  in  the 
harvest-field  or  on  surveying  trips,  that 
she  sat  pale  and  listless  and  brooding  for 
hours,  with  hands  that  had  always  been 
so  busy  and  helpful,  clasped  idly  in  her 
lap. 

Like  Juliet,  she  must  often  have  cried 
in  her  secret  heart,  "Oh,  love,  remain!" 
Left  alone,  she  became  the  prey  of  tor 
turing  thoughts.  Life  had  dealt  Ann 
Rutledge  but  one  blow,  but  that  had 
struck  to  the  roots  of  her  physical  and 
46 


Copyright,  1907,  by  Gutzon  Borglum. 


Gutzon  Borglum's  conception  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Considered  the  most  inspired  head  of  Lincoln  ever  modelled. 

From  the  memorial  head  in  the  Capitol,  Washington,  D.  C. 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
spiritual  life.  Her  world  still  tottered 
from  the  shock.  If  she  had  confessed  all 
her  first  vague,  foolish  fears,  her  mind 
might  have  been  freed  of  their  poison. 
But  she  came  of  brave  blood  and  tried 
to  fight  her  battle  alone. 

At  last,  worn  out  with  mental  and  moral 
wrestlings,  she  turned  to  her  father  for 
help.  Lincoln  was  working  at  high  pres 
sure  arid  he  had  some  perplexities  of 
debts.  She  shrank  from  troubling  him. 
•  Her  heart  must  have  beat  in  slow, 
suffocating  throbs  when  she  crept  to  her 
father's  arms  and  confessed  her  fears: 

What  if  McNamar  should  come  back! 

She  need  not  trouble  her  golden  head 
about  that!  The  country  would  be  too 
hot  to  hold  him.  Lincoln  had  thrashed 
the  breath  out  of  a  man  for  swearing 
before  women  in  his  store. 

But  what  if  he  still  loved  her,  trusted 
47 


LINCOLN'S     LOVE    STORY 
her,  was  on  his  way  back,  confident  and 
happy,  to  claim  her?     What  if  he  could 
lift  this  veil  of  mystery  and  stand  forth 
clear  and  manly? 

McNamar  would  never  appear  in  such 
guise,  bless  her  innocent  heart.  He  was 
a  black-hearted  scoundrel.  In  the  old 
days,  in  South  Carolina,  men  of  the  Rut- 
ledge  breed  would  have  killed  such  a 
hound.  But  he  was  alarmed  now,  surely, 
at  this  strange  obsession,  and  questioned 
her.  And  then  the  whole  piteous  truth 
was  out. 

She  was  afraid  he  would  come  back  — 
shuddering  at  the  thought  —  come  back 
to  reproach  her  with  pale  face  and 
stricken  eyes.  And  she  loved  him  no 
longer.  She  had  been  so  happy  this 
summer,  and  then  it  began  to  seem  all 
wrong.  Love  forsaken  was  such  pain 
and  bewilderment.  Could  she  endure 
48 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE     STORY 
happiness    purchased    at    the    price    of 
another's  misery? 

McNamar  had  come  back,  indeed,  and 
love  was  impotent  to  defend  this  hapless 
innocence!  She  had  never  understood 
his  behaviour.  Incapable  of  such  base 
ness  herself,  she  had  never  comprehended 
his.  Like  a  flower  she  had  been  blighted 
by  the  frost  of  his  desertion,  and  had 
revived  to  brief,  pale  life  in  a  new  sun; 
but  the  blight  had  struck  to  the  root. 

But  what  beauty  of  soul  was  here 
revealed,  adding  poignancy  to  grief!  No 
one  had  quite  known  her.  Physically  so 
perfect,  no  one  had  divined  those  exquisite 
subtleties  of  the  heart  that  made  her 
hold  on  life  tenuous.  Lincoln  was  sent 
for  but  he  was  not  found  at  once,  for  his 
employments  kept  him  roving  far  afield. 
Round  and  round,  in  constantly  contract 
ing  circles,  her  inverted  reason,  goaded  by 
49 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
an  accusing  conscience  ran  until,  at  last, 
her  sick  fancy  pictured  herself  as  the  faith 
less  one.  The  event  was  forgotten  —  she 
remembered  only  the  agony  of  love  for 
saken.  And  so  she  slipped  away  into  the 
delirium  of  brain  fever. 

Lincoln  had  one  anguished  hour  with 
her  in  a  brief  return  to  consciousness.  It 
was  in  the  living-room  of  a  pioneer  log- 
cabin,  untouched  by  grace  or  beauty; 
homely,  useful  things  about  them,  the 
light  on  her  face  coming  through  a  clap 
board  door  open  to  the  sun  and  wind  of 
an  unspoiled  landscape.  The  houses  of 
the  wealthiest  farmers  were  seldom  more 
than  two  big  rooms  and  a  sleeping  loft, 
and  privacy  the  rarest,  most  difficult 
privilege.  Her  stricken  family  was  in 
the  kitchen,  or  out  of  doors,  to  give  them 
this  hour  of  parting  alone.  What  was 
said  between  them  is  unrecorded.  When 
50 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE     STORY 
she  fell  into  a  coma,  Lincoln  stumbled  out 
of  that  death-chamber  like  a  soul  gone 
blind  and  groping.     Two  days  later  Ann 
Rutledge  died. 

As  a  pebble  falling  from  a  peak  in  the 
Alps  may  start  an  avalanche  on  its  yath 
of  destruction,  so  one  man's  unconsidered 
sin  may  devastate  many  lives.  The 
tragedy  shocked  the  country  for  twenty 
miles  around.  It  had  the  elements  and 
proportions  of  a  classic  tale,  so  that 
to-day,  when  it  is  three-quarters  of  a 
century  gone  by,  the  great-grandchildren 
of  those  who  witnessed  it  speak  of  it  with 
hushed  voices.  Lincoln's  mission  and 
martyrdom  imbued  it  with  those  fates 
that  invest  old  Greek  drama.  James 
Rutledge  died  three  months  later,  at  the 
age  of  fifty-four,  it  was  currently  believed 
of  a  broken  heart.*  The  ambitious  young 

*  Ida  M.  Tarbell's  ''Early  Life  of  Lincoln." 

51 


LINCOLN'S     LOVE     STORY 

brother  David,  who  was  to  have  been 
Lincoln's  partner,  died  soon  after  being 
admitted  to  the  bar.  The  Rutledge 
farm  was  broken  up,  the  family  scattered. 
Lincoln  came  to  the  verge  of  madness. 

A  week  after  the  funeral  William  G. 
Greene  found  him  wandering  in  the  woods 
along  the  river,  muttering  to  himself.  His 
mind  was  darkened,  stunned  by  the  blow. 
He  sat  for  hours  in  a  brooding  melancholy 
that  his  friends  feared  would  end  in 
suicidal  mania.  Although  some  one 
always  kept  a  watchful  eye  upon  him,  he 
sometimes  succeeded  in  slipping  away 
to  the  lonely  country  burying  ground, 
seven  miles  distant.  There  he  would  be 
found  with  one  arm  across  her  grave, 
reading  his  little  pocket  Testament.  This 
was  the  only  book  he  opened  for  months. 

All  that  long  autumn  he  noticed  noth 
ing.  He  was  entirely  docile,  pitifully 
52 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
like  a  child  who  waits  to  be  told  what  to 
do.  Aunt  Nancy  kept  him  busy  about 
the  house,  cutting  wood  for  her,  picking 
apples,  digging  potatoes,  even  holding  her 
yarn;  the  men  took  him  off  to  the  fields 
to  shock  and  husk  corn.  All  of  them 
tried,  by  constant  physical  employment, 
to  relieve  the  pressure  on  his  clouded 
mind,  love  leading  them  to  do  instinctively 
what  the  wisest  doctors  do  to-day.  In 
the  evenings  he  sat  outside  the  family 
circle,  sunk  in  a  brown  study  from  which 
it  was  difficult  to  rouse  him.  It  was  a 
long  and  terrible  strain  to  those  devoted 
friends  who  protected  and  loved  him  in  that 
anxious,  critical  time.  Not  until  the  first 
storm  of  December  was  there  any  change. 
It  was  such  a  night  of  wind  and  dark 
ness  and  snow,  as  used  to  cause  dwellers 
in  pioneer  cabins,  isolated  from  neigh 
bours  at  all  times,  but  now  swirled  about, 
53 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
shut  in,  and  cut  off  other  from  human  life 
by  the  tempest,  to  pile  the  big  fireplace 
with  dry  cord- wood,  banking  it  up  against 
the  huge  back-log,  and  draw  close  together 
around  the  hearth,  to  watch  the  flames 
roar  up  the  chimney.  There  would  be 
hot  mulled  cider  to  drink,  comforting 
things  to  eat,  and  cheerful  talk. 

Lincoln  was  restless  and  uneasy  in  his 
shadowy  corner.  His  eyes  burned  with 
excitement.  When  he  got  up  and 
wandered  about  the  room  William  fol 
lowed  him,  fearing  he  might  do  himself 
harm.  He  went  to  the  door,  at  last, 
threw  it  open  and  looked  out  into  the  wild 
night.  Turning  back  suddenly,  his  hands 
clenched  above  his  head,  he  cried  out  in 
utter  desolation: 

"I  cannot  bear  to  think  of  her  out  there 
alone,  in  the  cold  and  darkness  and 

storm." 

54 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
The  ice  of  his  frozen  heart  was  unlocked 
at  last,  and  his  reason  saved.  But  there 
were  months  of  bitter  grief  and  despair 
that  wore  him  out  physically.  His  fits 
of  melancholy  returned,  a  confirmed 
trait  that  he  never  lost.  In  time  he  went 
back  to  his  old  occupations,  bearing 
himself  simply,  doing  his  duty  as  a  man 
and  a  citizen.  His  intellect  was  keener, 
his  humour  kindlier;  to  his  sympathy  was 
added  the  element  of  compassion.  And 
on  his  face — in  his  eyes  and  on  his  mouth— 
was  fixed  the  expression  that  marks  him  as 
our  man  of  sorrows  deep  and  irremediable. 
Until  he  went  away  to  Springfield  a 
year  later  to  practise  law,  he  disappeared 
at  times.  Everyone  knew  he  was  with 
Ann,  sitting  for  hours  by  the  grassy 
mound  that  covered  her.  Once  he  said 
to  William  G.  Greene:  "My  heart  is 
buried  in  the  grave  with  that  dear  girl." 
55 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 

The  place  was  in  a  grove  of  forest 
trees  on  the  prairie  at  that  time,  but 
afterward  the  trees  were  cut  down  or 
neglected,  and  it  became  choked  with 
weeds  and  brambles  —  one  of  those  for 
lorn  country  bury  ing-grounds  that  marked 
the  passing  of  many  pioneer  settlements. 
For  in  1840  New  Salem  was  abandoned. 
The  year  after  Ann  Rutledge  died,  Lin 
coln  surveyed  and  platted  the  city  of 
Petersburg,  two  miles  farther  north  on  the 
river.  A  steam  mill  built  there  drew  all 
the  country  patronage.  Most  of  the 
people  of  New  Salem  moved  their  houses 
and  shops  over  to  the  new  town,  but  the 
big  tavern  stood  until  it  fell  and  the  logs 
were  hauled  away  for  firewood.  The 
dam  was  washed  out  by  floods.,  the  mill 
burned.  To-day,  the  bluff  on  which  the 
town  stood  has  gone  back  to  the  wild,  and 

the  site  is  known  as  Old  Salem  on  the  Hill. 
56 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
The  Bowling  Green  farm  passed  into 
the  possession  of  strangers.  Many  years 
ago  the  cabin  of  hewn  logs  was  moved 
from  under  the  brow  of  the  bluff  down  to 
the  bank  of  the  river  and  turned  into  a 
stable.  More  than  eighty  years  old  now, 
this  primitive  structure  that  was  Lincoln's 
home  for  three  years,  still  stands.  Every 
spring  it  is  threatened  by  freshets.  You 
look  across  the  flooded  bottom  land  to 
where  it  stands  among  cottonwoods 
and  willows,  and  think  —  and  think  - 
that  this  crumbling  ruin,  its  squared 
logs  worn  and  shrunken  and  parted,  its 
clapboard  roof  curled,  its  crazy  door 
sagging  from  the  post,  rang  to  that  cry 
of  desolation  of  our  country's  hero-martyr. 
He  lies  under  a  towering  marble  monu 
ment  at  Springfield,  twenty  miles  away. 
There  is  his  crown  of  glory;  here  his 
Gethsemane. 

57 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  STORY 
Twenty  years  ago  Ann  Rutledge  was 
brought  in  from  the  country  burying- 
ground  and  laid  in  Oakland  Cemetery, 
in  Petersburg.  Only  a  field  boulder 
marks  the  mound  to-day,  but  the  young 
girls  of  the  city  and  county,  who  claim 
her  as  their  own,  are  to  celebrate  Lincoln's 
centennial  year  by  setting  up  a  slender 
shaft  of  Carrara  marble  over  the  grave 
of  Lincoln's  lost  love.  Around  her,  on 
that  forest-clad  bluff,  lie  Old  Salem 
neighbours.  It  is  a  cheerful  place,  where 
gardeners  mow  the  grass  and  sweep  the 
gravelled  roadways,  where  carriages  drive 
in  the  park-like  enclosure  on  Sunday 
afternoons  and  flowers  are  laid  lavishly 
on  new-made  graves.  Bird-haunted, 
robins  chirp  in  the  blue  grass  and  wood 
peckers  drum  on  the  tree-trunks;  blue 
birds,  tanagers  and  orioles,  those  jewels 
of  the  air  with  souls,  flash  across  the  sunlit 
58 


LINCOLN'S    LOVE    STORY 
spaces,  and  the  meadow-lark  trills  joy 
ously  from  a  near-by  field  of  clover. 

No  longer  is  she  far  away  and  alone,  in 
cold  and  darkness  and  storm,  where  he 
could  not  bear  to  think  of  her,  but  lying 
here  among  old  friends,  in  dear  familiar 
scenes,  under  enchantment  of  immortal 
youth  and  deathless  love,  on  this 
sunny  slope,  asleep. 

Flow  gently,  sweet  Sangamon;  disturb 
not  her  dream. 


NOTE 

THERE  are  two  descriptions  of  Ann  Rutledge,  one  by 
W.  H.  Herndon.  The  other,  not  so  well  known,  is  by 
T.  G.  Onstot,  son  of  Henry  Onstot,  the  New  Salem 
cooper,  in  his  "Pioneers  of  Mason  and  Menard." 
Mr.  Onstot  is  still  living,  at  the  age  of  eighty  in  Mason 
City,  Illinois,  the  sole  survivor  of  the  historic  settle 
ment  on  the  Sangamon,  and  an  unquestioned  author 
ity  on  the  history  of  the  region.  He  was  six  years 
old  when  Ann  Rutledge  died.  He  does  not  profess  to 
remember  her  personally,  but  to  have  got  her  descrip 
tion  from  his  father  and  mother.  The  families  were 
next-door  neighbours  for  a  dozen  years,  and  life-long 
friends.  Herndon  lived  in  Springfield.  Mr.  Onstot' s 
description  is  used  here  as,  in  all  probability,  the  cor 
rect  one,  for  this  reason,  and  also  because  it  is  more 
in  keeping  with  the  character  of  Ann  Rutledge,  as  re 
vealed  in  her  tragic  story. 


60 


aul  (Bldcr 


